So, what have we been up to?
Viernes 6 Julio
On Friday we visited the shanty town
Pamplona Alta in San Juan de Miraflores. We walked for about an hour through the shanty town past
chancherías (pig sties), houses and comedores -places that serve food very
cheaply- for babies, children, or adults- Un sol cincuenta centimos or less (45 cents). The ground was rocky and
dirty, we had to avoid piles of rubbish, decaying animals and dog poo and not
fall over. There were lots of very steep escaleras (stairs) that we had to
climb. Far in the distance we saw a group of 4 fog collector screens, high up
above the houses, and decided to go and check it out. It took ages to walk, and
was really smelly and gross, especially with the sun (but still overcast). There were also piles of
burning rubbish, and old people picked through the garbage trying to find
useful or valuable things, or food.
We navigated the unstable ground and trekked
up the steep ‘cerro’ (hill) towards the fog collectors, stopping frequently to
rest and choose the best path. Once we got to the fog collectors the view was
incredible- we could see all the way to the coast (about 30 km away) and looked
down on the sprawling shanty town below.
Then it was time to investigate the fog
collectors. We started off taking photos of everything: the whole structures
and their details, talking about the materials, comparing it with our one and
those we had researched. It had wooden support posts, two layers of mesh and a
pvc gutter. There were mesh clips all the way along it to hold the ropes that
attached it to the posts and the trough. It was covered in dirt, and the trough
was lined with dust. One of the fog screens had broken and lay decrepit on the
hillside. We were expecting to build our standard fog collector (SFC) with an
aluminium frame, but Victor explained that aluminium is more expensive than
wood, and because it’s valuable people might want to steal it and sell it, so
we’ve changed our design to accommodate this.
We were excited to find lots of greenery-
some weedy ground cover that indicated ‘tierra dulce’ or fertile soil. Victor
explained that these plants survived on the moisture in the air. When we picked
up handfuls of dirt they were full of little roots, and had a decent moisture
content.
We set up the Kestrel 4500 (donated by
Prospectors) on Andy’s tripod (donated by Fotogenic) to check out the wind
speed and weather conditions, but being the middle of the day there was barely
any fog or wind! From now on we’ll be going to site much earlier when the fog
is still present (hello 4.30am starts!)With the help of Victor's laptop and Nextel's internet coverage, we found out that the fog collector was a pilot project done by PEBAL, an organisation much like Solidaridad En Marcha (for which Victor is the volunteer coordinator). Next week we're going to meet with the director of PEBAL and ask about this project- it's successes and failings, how they chose the site, and learn as much as we can from their experience before starting ours.
On our way down we stopped to chat with a
lady, Lidia Pancheco, who lived closest to the fog collector and was washing
her clothes outside her house with a neighbour. She said the collector works well and she uses the water for washing clothes and watering her plants (there were some saplings growing
quite well along the side of her house). We also asked her about the water in
barrels- she has to buy a barrel water every second day (at about 2.50 soles
per barrel- super expensive) from the tanker-truck that comes around the
cerros. The attitude towards the fog water was positive - Lidia thought the
water seemed more natural. Her son quipped that he didn’t like the taste of the
tank water, but the fog water wasn’t currently being used for drinking.
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